Don't be too original

This week I've been working my way through a fascinating book by Allen Garrett titled The Creative Curve.  Garrett claims there is a science of success, and sets out to prove it through dozens of interviews with successful entrepreneurial and creative people, and reviews of scientific studies.

He breaks success down into four laws.  The first is Consumption.  For writers, that translates as the old commandment to read, read, read, in your genre.  Know what's out there before you start to create.  But it was his second law, titled Imitation, that piqued my interest.  He talks of the formula for success being "something familiar... but different."

He refers to Kurt Vonnegut's thesis, which maps out the emotional arcs of great works.  He found four main emotional arcs that stories follow.  Garrett refers to researchers who have taken these ideas and used computer analysis to look for these emotional arcs.  The research confirmed Vonnegut's thesis, with  'Man in Hole' (somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of trouble) being the most popular structure. 

So how does this help novelists?  Garrett quotes Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit, on this.  He  believes that "all culture is made up of remixes".  Creation has to do with the adaptation of something familiar more often than the creation of something completely new.

I instinctively did that when I wrote Starfire.  Inspired by Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War and CJ Cherryh's Chanur Saga, Starfire took the same setting of action aboard a spaceship, but twisted it a little.  So what was my twist on the 'same'?

Well, unlike Moon's Ky Vatta, my ship captain remains a civilian throughout the book.  But she agrees to work with an alien military commander.  Like Cherryh's captain, she's a trading ship captain.  But Cherrryh's Pyanfar Chanur is an alien Hani.  My Ria Bihar is human.  These changes give me my same but different.

John Berlyne of Zeno Agency addressed this in his talk at Winchester Writers' Festival.  He said that publishers are afraid of the too original.  They want "same, but different".  Now, having read Allen Garrett's book, I'm finally convinced that it works.  So it's back to sending out Starfire on submission to test out the theory.